Adventure

"Yeah, not so good."

Sure, it's widely regarded as a blueprint for the modern day games which fall under the genre title that shares its name with this game. Sure, it contains one of the first ever ''Easter Eggs'' in gaming. But when all is said and done, Adventure really isn't much fun. Regardless of its status as a classic, it really didn't hold up too well after all these years.

I enjoy playing older games, I play them just as much if not more than my more recently released games. However, I do not blindly go about praising each and every one of the more recognizable elder games as godly in their very design. In fact, I am rather hated by many people for not liking such games as the first Final Fantasy and games such as Pitfall and the very game in question, Adventure.

Regardless of what basically anyone on the message boards would have you believe, my dislike of said games has pretty much nothing to do with their lack of graphical prowess. It simply has to do with the fact that these games just simply aren't as fun as they seemed to be back when I first played them oh so many moons ago...

In Adventure, you assume the ''role'' of a small, single-colored, square. Your task? To return the treasure back to it's goal. Your enemies? ''Dragons'' that look more like ducks without feet, and a pesky bat that steals from you. The apparent challenge of the game lies within merely finding your way throughout the simple mazes whilst dodging the so-called dragons, and avoiding the annoying little bat. These obstacles would be challenging only to either the very stoned, or very slow-witted. Upon finding your way to the treasure, you simply walk up to it, thus picking it up. You immediately turn back around and hightail it to the goal while once again avoiding dragons and the bat. Other than that there isn't much to the game whatsoever.

To me, such blatantly simple tasks are boring. Sure Adventure is basically the first of its kind, but that should not give it any special status that would keep it from attaining an honest score. And if said honest score isn't exactly what most people would like it to be, then so be it. Even though I have a certain amount of respect for this game for being as I said earlier the blueprint for many of the games we play today, I simply can not justify giving a higher score. I would much rather play one of the more complicated and refined descendents of Adventure, than actually play Adventure itself. Sorry...

PROS
- Pretty much paved the way for today's ''adventure'' games
- Easter Egg (stick it to the man!)

CONS
- Obscenely simplistic gameplay
- ''Duck Dragons''
- Severely limited color scheme (even for an Atari2600 game)

Gameplay (2/10)
Visuals (1/10)
Sound/Music (1/10)
Replay Value (2/10)
Entertainment (2/10)

FINAL SCORE 3/10

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 04/26/04